Campaign

How to spell campaign

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce campaign

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does campaign mean?

1. nounA planned series of actions intended to achieve a particular goal, such as winning an election, promoting a product, or raising money.
2. verbTo take part in or lead an organised course of action aimed at achieving a social or political goal.

Campaign in a sentence

• noun

  The charity launched a campaign to fund the new hospital wing.

• verb

  Residents continue to campaign for safer roads near the school.

• noun

  Her advertising campaign doubled sales within three months.

• verb

  She will campaign tirelessly for the seat in the coming weeks.

Where does campaign come from?

Language of origin: French

This word traces back to the Latin campus, meaning an open field or level stretch of ground, the same root that gives us 'camp' and the 'campus' of a university. Late Latin developed campania to mean a flat, open countryside, which passed into Italian as campagna and then into French as campagne. The military sense arose because armies in earlier centuries took to the open country to fight during the warmer months, so a 'campaign' first meant the stretch of operations conducted in the field, away from winter quarters. English borrowed the word in the seventeenth century, keeping the French spelling with its silent 'g', and by the nineteenth century the meaning had broadened from war to any organised effort in politics, advertising, or charity. That French-derived -aign ending, where the 'g' is written but not pronounced, is exactly what trips up writers who expect it to sound like 'campain'.

How the word is built

• camp- (from Latin campus: field, open ground)
• -aign (from French -agne, from Latin -ania)